Maj. Heinz Fuld 

Date Of Birth :
11 April 1908
Place Of Birth :
Berlin, Germany
Position :
R.A.M.C.
Died :
21/01/2008
 
Brief History

Obituary Liverpool Post newspaper 29 January 2008:

He neverspoke of that dreadful place, where the degradation, depravity and suffering shamed the soul of man. Even strong words could not carry that memory.

But people spoke of the good doctor himself with great warmth, remembering him as tall with broad shoulders and driving a black Standard 10 – carrying with him a Gladstone bag, in which he kept his stetho- scope and other instruments, including forceps – in case he had to bring another baby into the world.

In later life, Heinz Fuld changed his Standard 10 for a Rover, but his fervent belief that the interests of the patient must always come first remained the same.

And those patients remembered him as a man with a kindly but commanding presence, whose firm voice never fully lost the accent which told of his German origins.

Fuld was born in Berlin, where his father was a banker. As a young man, he studied medicine in Frankfurt, Vienna, Munich, Freiburg and Heidelberg, as well as Berlin. He obtained his MD in 1931.

But the rise of the Nazis clouded the country. Only a little of Fuld’s ancestral blood was Jewish, but in those days such things were measured.

His father killed himself and Fuld’s mentor, Hans Krebs, the doctor and biochemist of Freiburg, fled to England, receiving the Nobel medicine prize in 1953. Fuld, baptised a Christian, followed in 1933.

Once in Britain, he became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, before entering into general practice in Aigburth, Liver- pool, where his superb bed- side manner, humour and wise counselling were much in evidence.

During the war, Fuld served as a major/doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps and it was in this capacity that he was the first British doctor to enter the Belsen death camp.

After the formation of the National Health Service in 1948, he was appointed physician to the Sefton and Newsham General Hospitals.

His retirement was marked by a party at the Liverpool Medical Institution, but he continued in private practice at his surgery in Rodney Street, Liverpool, into his 90s. He then lived in Llanar- mon-yn-Ial, North Wales, which he loved because it reminded him of the Alps. He had climbed the Matterhorn and Dolomites in younger days.

Fuld is survived by his wife, Pat, a daughter and a step-daughter.

Heinz Fuld, physician; born April 11, 1908, died January 21, 2008.

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